Especially if they are friendly and comfortable, these bars seem to offer a refuge from a cruel, busy world.

The Red Lion, an old-school cocktail lounge in downtown Homewood, is one of those places.

"It's good to have a place to come, and you know you can relax and be among friends, and let your frustrations go," according to long-time patron Randy Gray, a retired geologist and businessman. "You can unwind and enjoy life without any stress."

The Red Lion offers regulars a place to drink in peace and, perhaps just as important, in private. "The draw is that you can come here and not be seen," according to one Red Lion habitue who identified himself only as Frank.

And The Red Lion -- hidden away in the rear of a small commercial structure next to a parking deck a block or so from the Aloft Hotel -- has another important distinction.

Open since about 1962, this little Homewood institution -- with a seating capacity of about 35, not counting a small outside patio -- is one of the oldest bars in Birmingham.

In fact, that is the reason an AL.com reporter and photographer visited the Red Lion on a recent Monday night.

What we found was a place that offers not just cocktails, or even just a friendly atmosphere, but a sort of hideaway.

"This is kind of our special secret that we like to bring our friends, our special friends, to," said regular patron Lysle Hendrix.

Hendrix said that he has frequented The Red Lion for about 11 years, ever since the closing of Penny's, another old bar. Much of the Penny's crowd migrated to The Red Lion, he said.

"You know everybody who comes in, or you're going to know 90 percent of them," according to Hendrix, who said that The Red Lion is generally not a place that patrons just stumble across.

"You don't find this place," he said. "You have to be brought here."

And the atmosphere at The Red Lion, according to owner Pat Sellers-Foster, is "friendly, just very friendly."

Gray, who has frequented the bar since at least 1962, agrees. "It's a friendly place with good people," he said as he sipped a Beefeater's gin and tonic. "We seek to congregate and enjoy each other's company. And the people who work here are very nice."

Gray made his first visit to The Red Lion immediately after his discharge from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1962.

"Another Marine friend of mine suggested we come here and have a drink and celebrate, and I just liked it," he said.

He still visits the bar once or twice a week, he said.

Pat Sellers-Foster, the owner of the lounge since 1990, was tending the small bar in The Red Lion the night we visited.

This was a rare treat, we learned, since Foster - now living in Odenville with her husband, Allen -- usually leaves those duties to Co-managers Taffy Jolly and Pat Swilley.

Of course, Foster is no stranger to mixology, having tended bar since the early 1970s at many Birmingham establishments.

"I can't even tell you how many bars I've worked in," according to Foster, who mentioned such examples as Alexander's in Hoover, the Sports Page on West Oxmoor and El Palacio in Irondale (when it was called Chiquita's Lounge).

However, she learned to tend bar out of sheer, sudden necessity when she was working at the Holiday Inn on Third Ave. North and 13th St. downtown.

One night in 1973, the regular bartender didn't make it to work, and Foster was pressed into service.

"I didn't know how to make drinks," she said. "But I was the only one who could use the cash register."

The first night behind the bar was, Foster said, "a little bit wild."

But she made $40 in tips and discovered a new career. "I said, 'I'm not going back to cashiering,'" according to Foster.

Foster, who had previously leased and operated a bar downtown for a few months, found The Red Lion when it had been closed for a couple of years.

"I just fell in love with it," she said. "I loved the way it was set up. It was just the right size. There was just something about it."

After some painting and cleanup, Foster reopened the bar, and she brought along some of her old customers from the Holiday Inn Civic Center, including employees from the Social Security Administration and Carraway Methodist Medical Center.

The crowd and atmosphere at The Red Lion are not that different than in 1962, according to Gray. "It was businessmen from Bell South, from the banks, but it was much the same character as it has today," he said.

The Red Lion's decor certainly has some charm. Some of the walls are covered in caricatures of customers drawn off and on in the 1990s by an artist named Dennis Huey - now deceased, according to Foster.

Some of the regulars at the bar, including Gray and Foster herself, can point out the likenesses of their much-younger selves.

And Foster asked that we sign the bar's bound guest book, which she said goes back to 2001.

The Red Lion offers a chance to drop concerns of money and class and status at the door, Gray suggested.

"It's laid-back and comfortable and private, and we all respect each other to be the individuals we are," he said. "There's no social structure. Everybody is on an equal footing."

"You have multi-millionaires and painters," Frank said. "It's a very diverse crowd."

They also suggested that some fairly well-known residents of the Magic City take advantage of the hideaway that is the Red Lion.

"There are people who everybody would recognize who come in, but this is their place to go, and we keep it that way," Hendrix said.

Business at the bar has been down, according to Foster. "Right now it's been really, really slow," she said. "I don't know why, because the three or four years before were good."

One reason is that some of the bar's old customers have died, according to the long-time proprietor. "We've lost quite a few regulars, some of them who've been here from the beginning," she said.

But she still enjoys owning the bar. "I love it," she said.

And Foster said that she wants to keep the bar open, as long as she has the help of co-managers Jolly and Swilley.

And some new customers are beginning to discover the bar, Swilley said in a telephone interview subsequent to our visit.

"We're getting some young people from Soho," she said, referring to the nearby development that houses such younger establishments as Jackson's.

Foster speaks highly of her customers through the years. "The people, most of them, I trust completely," she said. "Probably in 23 years, we might have lost, maybe, about $100 in tabs not paid. That's a pretty good average."

Frank seemed to sum up the appeal of The Red Lion - and perhaps of a lot of similar establishments.

"I tell my wife if I could go downstairs (in my house), this is what I would want," he said. "Cold Beer. Football. Friends. It's not a meat market. It's just a place to drink and to have conversation."

The Red Lion is located at 1926 29th Ave. South in Homewood. It is open Monday through Saturday at 11 a.m. Closing time during the week is usually 10 or 11 p.m., and after the "last ball game" on Saturday, according to Swilley. For more information, call 205-871-8552.